|
Nicaragua mission trip inspires Catholics to act |
|
|
|
By Julie Carroll
|
|
Wednesday, 01 April 2009 |
Every year, the archdiocesan Center for Mission sponsors an immersion trip to a developing country, giving Catholics in the archdiocese an opportunity to experience firsthand the church’s social mission in action.
Counter-clockwise from top, Kathryn Runman-Zimney, associate director of the archdiocesan Center for Mission; School Sister of Notre Dame Irene Dohmen, pastoral associate at St. Margaret Mary in Golden Valley; and Cheryl Peterson of the archdiocesan Office for Social Justice visit children at a school in Nicaragua during a mission trip sponsored by the Center for Mission last June. Julie Carroll / The Catholic Spirit
Last June, eight people, including a Catholic Spirit reporter, traveled to Nicaragua to learn about the work of Catholic Relief Services in that country and to better understand how Fair Trade impacts coffee farmers, artisans and their communities.
Since the trip, the pilgrims have been moved by their experiences to make changes both in their own lives and in their parishes.
“People are transformed by these trips. They’re eye-opening,” said
Kathryn Runman-Zimney, associate director of the Center for Mission. “I
think they really come to understand what mission is and they want to
be involved at a different level than they were before. You just can’t
forget, and you don’t want to forget.”
Nine months after the trip, The Catholic Spirit checked in with members of the group to find out how they were moved to action.
Experiencing solidarity
Deacon Paul Tatone of Our Lady of Peace in Minneapolis said he chose to
go on the trip to learn more about solidarity and to revisit a country
he had led a youth mission trip to in 2001.
Find out more
For more information about the Center for Mission’s immersion trips, visit the Web site at www.CenterForMission.org.
Read entries from the Nicaraguan mission trip communal journal HERE.
|
Since returning from Nicaragua, Deacon Tatone has begun several
initiatives to help bring his entire parish into solidarity with the
poor.
After Sunday Masses, the parish sells Fair Trade coffee, tea and
chocolate, and provides information about how Fair Trade ensures just
wages for farmers and artisans.
He also has begun a program called “Caring for God’s Creation” to make
the parish more environmentally friendly. The parish now recycles, uses
compact fluorescent light bulbs and biodegradable cups, and has
conducted an energy audit.
“Being down there [in Nicaragua] and seeing people get by on nothing,
reusing things, and seeing the plastics blowing around, it kind of hit
home that we’re not doing a very good job of taking care of the earth,”
he said.
Deacon Tatone also drew on his experiences in Nicaragua in facilitating
the parish’s JustFaith group, an adult education program that focuses
on Catholic social teaching.
In 2010, the parish is planning to organize a similar mission trip focused on solidarity with the poor, Deacon Tatone said.
Nicaraguan fiesta
• What:
8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Nicaraguan breakfast prepared by Mi Familia
Restaurante y Cantina (free-will offering), 9 a.m. bilingual Mass with
Nicaraguan music, followed by a celebration featuring Nicaraguan music
and dancing
• When: Sunday, May 17
• Where: Guardian Angels, 8260 4th St. N, Oakdale
• Information: (651) 738-2223
|
‘All are my relatives’
For School Sister of Notre Dame Irene Dohmen, pastoral associate at St.
Margaret Mary in Golden Valley, the trip was a chance “to really get
into the lives of people, to let them touch my life.”
After the trip, Sister Irene reflected on her experiences: “Solidarity
is the ability to hold the pain, the hopes, the dreams and joys and
walk with them. . . . Solidarity is remembering that all are my
relatives and whatever I can do for them to help them walk with dignity
is loving them.”
She said the trip has made her much more aware of how she is connected
to sisters in her community who are serving in Third World countries.
“They’re very much more a part of my prayer,” she said.
She plans to speak about her Nicaragua experiences at St. Margaret Mary on Sunday, April 19.
Spiritual journey
Erin Sim, office manager at St. Albert the Great in South Minneapolis,
decided to go on the trip because of its spiritual focus. And, Fair
Trade was something she had been promoting at the parish for a long
time, she said.
When Sim returned from the trip, she wrote about her impressions and
put together a photo mosaic for the parish bulletin. “I am a richer
person for having seen people who are rich while having much less than
I do,” she wrote.
In January, Sim gave a presentation on Fair Trade coffee and pottery at
the parish. She also spoke about a woman she had met who needed a
cement floor for her cinder-block home and a wheelchair for her
disabled son.
The woman’s story inspired a 13-year-old parishioner to donate $80 of
her own money to help the woman, said Sim, who has been selling
homemade greeting cards to raise the remainder of the $750 needed.
“I could see that what seemed like an achievable amount of money to me
could make a huge difference in this woman’s life,” she said about her
decision to help.
Sim also switched the parish’s coffee to Fair Trade coffee and put
posters up in the social hall explaining what it is and how it benefits
farmers.
Sim said the trip made the world a little bit smaller for her. “Now
it’s much easier for me to imagine behind a news story the lives of
the people who are being affected,” she said.
Personal transformation
Lee Moisant, a parishioner at Our Lady of Peace in Minneapolis, decided
to go to Nicaragua to expand on what he had learned in the parish’s
JustFaith program.
During the trip, Moisant was struck by the hospitality of the people he met and the importance of family in their lives.
He wrote in the group’s communal journal:
“In a setting of family solidarity reminiscent of the North American
19th-century homesteaders, we hear of one poor family’s unhesitating
acceptance of an abandoned and seriously ill baby into their home to be
raised along with their other six children. . . . .
“These Nicaraguan farmers (some would refer to them as peasants)
possess a commitment to life and to a community that I can only weakly
aspire to. I will never forget these people.”
After returning to Minnesota, Moisant made two presentations on Fair
Trade coffee to his parish and a school. The trip also moved him to
make changes in his own life.
Moisant joined the Ignatian Volunteer Corps, which led to his work as a
congregational organizer for the Workers Interfaith Network, whose
constituents come largely from the immigrant community. “I see it as a
part of my spiritual journey as a result of that trip,” he said.
He also buys Fair Trade products whenever possible and has made a commitment to buy produce from a local farm.
“I now have a much more concrete idea of what it really means to be in solidarity with the poor,” Moisant said.
“Having been exposed to the courageous hope expressed by the men, women
and children we met, having looked into their eyes, having prayed and
danced with them, having touched their hands and embraced them, how can
I forget them and their daily struggle?” he said. “They know what they
need. They just require our personal support in order to help them
achieve it.”
Fair Trade makes a difference
Whenever visitors arrive at the archdiocese’s central offices, first
they have to sign in at the front desk, where receptionist Sue
Mockenhaupt greets them.
Beside Mockenhaupt’s desk is a display filled with bags of coffee,
chocolate bars and beaded earrings for sale. All of it is Fair Trade
certified, meaning the proceeds go back to the producers and artisans
in developing countries.
After going on the trip to Nicaragua, Mockenhaupt said, she has a new
appreciation for the products she sells at her desk and takes every
opportunity to tell visitors how their Fair Trade purchases are making
a real difference in the lives of people like those she met in
Nicaragua.
The trip also gave Mockenhaupt a greater respect for Catholic Relief Services, she said.
“We saw people struggling to survive, yet the people we interacted with
are the lucky ones,” she said. “They are being helped by CRS programs.
CRS does not give them money; rather, the goal is to enable families to
make enough money to survive. The programs make loans, provide water
and give people expertise in an area where they can support themselves.”
Changing focus
“I didn’t go looking for this trip. It came looking for me,” said
Cheryl Peterson, parish social ministry manager for the archdiocesan
Office for Social Justice.
Peterson had never traveled to a Third World country before and didn’t
know what to expect. She admitted feeling some trepidation about
leaving her comfort zone.
“Since the trip to Nicaragua,” she said, “I’m convinced everyone should
take an opportunity to participate in an immersion experience like
this. . . . This trip is an opportunity, ever so briefly, to shed a
focus on self. It is an opportunity to not just listen, but hear. It is
an opportunity to take the blinders off and really see.”
 |
|
Show/hide comment form